Written by

@DanielRadelAPP

Nearly a month after superstorm Sandy, immigrant labor rights advocacy groups say they’re unaware of any cases of day laborers being denied payment for work related to recovery efforts.

“I’m not hearing anything right now that they’re not getting paid,” said Stuart Sydenstricker of Wind of the Spirit, an immigrant resource center in Morristown. “But it could take a few more weeks to come out.”

Sydenstricker and Diana Mejia, also of Wind of the Spirit, document incidents of wage theft or injuries among immigrant laborers — many of whom speak little or no English — that otherwise might go unreported.

Part of the problem with officially tracking such incidents is that the state does not and cannot make inquiries at work sites about workers’ immigration status. Consequently, it’s not possible to say whether undocumented laborers are performing work, according to Department of Labor spokesman Brian T. Murray.

If a worker complained of being ripped off for wages by a contractor, the state would investigate, but the case would not be listed based on a worker’s ethnicity, immigration status, type of employment or any other such factors, Murray said.

In the month since Sandy, Sydenstricker and Mejia said they have visited many New Jersey communities where immigrant day laborers are commonly picked up on the streets by contractors — including Long Branch, Neptune and Red Bank — but haven’t come across any reports of wage theft.

They said a laborer from Morristown was injured on a job involving tree removal.

“He was moving logs onto a truck and got his hand stuck. It was crushed, and he lost the tips of a few fingers,” Sydenstricker said. “A lot of these cases end up at the hospital, and rarely does anyone pay for their treatment.”

Job safety is a big concern for Mejia, who said workers might be out there “cutting down trees with no experience,” operating heavy equipment such as chain saws.

Mejia said contractors — some from out of state — have been picking up laborers in Morristown and taking them to hard-hit Jersey Shore seaside towns where sand and tree removal have been common jobs paying between $10 and $15 per hour.

In Freehold, Rita Dentino, director of CASA Freehold, an immigrant resource center, said potential for wage theft is a serious concern.

“There was 80 percent wage theft reported in some cases (among) the workers down at Katrina,” Dentino said.